


Leviathan

by Hyperius (Euregatto)



Series: A Matter of Bait and Bite [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU - the Senator & the Jedi, Assassination Attempt(s), Established Reylo, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, Other, Politics & Flirting & Dreamsharing oh my, Rey Kenobi, Senator Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:25:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Hyperius
Summary: Rey is reminded of a grandiose throne room she has never stepped foot in, and how It burns, quietly.“You’re Ben Solo, don’t you remember? You’remine.”





	Leviathan

**Author's Note:**

> Alt: Ben, Rey, and the defected Knights uncover a sinister plot, and begin a dangerous game of cat and mouse with General Hux. Rey continues to have strange dreams of killing Ben in a life neither of them has lived...
> 
> Author Notes: this story will be comprised of short chapters for frequent updates. A side project, of sorts, to try different styles.

 

 

Sometimes, in her dreams, she kills him. 

  

 

 

 

_Look at me._

Her eyes snap open, pupils dilated with lust, cheeks and chest flushed hot, red. He’s gazing down at her as if she’s one of his proposed laws. Something to be studied and considered.

 

_Rey, my love, the Force is not your salvation._

 

She feels him pushing into her and her mind is blanked by desperation as her nails carve promises into his back.

_I am._

Rey awakens when the early morning sunlight cascades through the window panes and across her face. She is reminded, for the split second between waking and pulling through the layers of her dream, of a grandiose throne room she has never stepped foot in; how It burns, quietly. She sees him— _Kylo Ren_ , only when he has that scar—but when she persists, he falters. “You’re _Ben Solo_ , don’t you remember? You’re _mine_.”

The visions are mingled. She knows they belong to him, and yet not him, or the version of him she sees in this other life, collapsed quite pathetically against a backdrop of pristine snow in a forest she has never known. Then she blinks up at the uncaring ceiling, crosses her wrist over her eyes to protect from the sun’s glare, and inhales the scent of the bedroom, body musk and fresh linens and fruit pits in a bowl on the nightstand.

The gray sheets rustle against her bare skin. Ben mumbles, roused into consciousness by her sudden unease; the arm around her waist pulls her closer. He’s already fallen back asleep before she can ask him, _Do you know who you are?_

 

* * *

  

  

Rey learns quickly that there will always be rumors.

  

Ben’s penthouse on Hosnian Prime is private, overlooking the magnificent cityscape and lingering far above the prying eyes of the public. His neighbors are dignified nobles, soldiers, lawmakers, the crudely rich or academically accomplished — and thankfully, they have concerns of their own. Likewise, the Senate is comprised of people with entirely different standards from the Jedi, and they care little for Ben Solo’s private life, so long as he avoids scandalous behavior.

However, the Jedi Council regularly expresses its elicit disappointment with Rey’s decision to accept the position as personal guard to Senator Ben Organa-Solo, and each of her return trips to Yavin IV proves fatal for her patience. She had taken the job even when Ben rejected her initial proposal, for a reason she claimed was of her own wants — yet the rumors of their relationship bloomed and renewed. Being a Jedi Master, and at such a young age, entailed honest, respectful work and devotion, a life of sincerity even at its worst; it’s not what Rey wants. Not right _now_ , at least, no matter the amount of approbation she’d receive.

(She will never tell the council about her dreams.)

Princess Organa has come to suspect their involvement, dropping hints in her son’s direction but never outright interrogating him except behind closed doors, when she thinks Rey can’t overhear from just outside the barrier. Master Skywalker has never made any inquiries, and although he’s not nearly as concerned as his twin, he often fails to check the council on their wry curiosity.

Her relationship with Ben should be no one’s business but hers and his. But while the rumors are simple gibes, for now, the Knights of Ren know _everything_. (Everything but the dreams.) Rey is beginning to suspect that they’re the ones who spark the flames of each new rumor.

“But we have no reason to,” Endo Ren claims when they’ve gathered together after the intersession, but Rey doesn’t miss his evocative undertone. “We don’t wish to insult your name.”

Rey sits next to Ben at the dining room table in his penthouse; it’s wide enough to accommodate the other 6 Rens, and by that regard, the several sessions members who dine with Ben on most nights in his attempt to persuade their viewpoints on his bills. The Jedi Council has a mess hall everyone gathers at for meals, and Rey sits next to him then too, at the conclave table with the other Jedi Masters, but she is respectfully spaced apart from him. Here, however, her knee brushes Ben’s, and he occasionally rests his hand there, his thumb absently stroking her thigh.

“I can understand your frustration,” Cyleena Ren pipes up. “Those conclusions are farfetched! It’s not like you’re often seen in Kylo’s presence, entering his personal space and his personal quarters where you sleep in his personal bed—”

“I get it,” Rey interjects with narrowed eyes, and the Mirialan woman takes the joke in good stride. Without her mask, she’s olive skinned, and her diamond markings line the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Her nature is agreeable, passive to the point that Rey often forgets she once witnessed Cyleena interrogate a First Order spy by flaying him alive while Ben watched, unflinching. _(If you think I don’t regret it,_ she had said, and Rey uneasily gripped the hilt of her lightsaber _, then you fail to understand the necessity of the Dark Side, Jedi.)_

“It’s irrelevant,” Ben tells them. “Our relationship is of no inference to the Jedi Council. They worry you’ll never devote yourself to the path of Jedi Master, not as long as you’re focusing on security and political atonement.”

Anita Ren huffs. The second eldest Ren, primed at 40, she is the embodiment of experience, her skin tanned from too many desert suns and her burnished blonde hair tamed as a faux hawk; she had been an adult since the first time she saw herself crying in a mirror. She doesn’t dream and hasn’t slept more than four hours a night in sixteen years. Rey has come to understand that the ones who don’t dream are the most terrifying of all fighters — they have nothing to gain, nothing to give, and nothing to lose. “We all know how they despise wasted potential,” Anita says then, her voice as cruel and cold as untampered steel. When she speaks the threads of the Force tremble with reverence.

Rey shifts uncomfortably. “It was never about that, it was a matter of—”

“You’ve got too much Vader in you,” Deecko Ren interjects, as conniving and intelligent as his twin Saro. They’re identical in feature, pale skin and paler hair, but their masks distinguish them apart; Deecko fiddles and Saro tinkers, dissatisfied with disorder until satisfied by progress, and both treat obstacles as a mere inconvenience. Saro is insistently bitter enough to scrutinize the fine details, while Deecko stores them away for later; he had grown to admire latent strategy over quick precision.

“That’s the excuse,” Saro Ren amends, “and now that they’ve lost you, they’re worried he’ll plant a seed of darkness in you, too.”

Rey’s stomach sinks. “That’s not what they said,” she hisses through grit teeth, grasping Ben’s forearm. He doesn’t look at her, even as she gazes intensely into his listless expression. “Ben, that is _not_ true.”

“Truth is relative,” Endo interjects. He’s tall, dark-skinned with black braids, and intuitive, the adaptive residue of growing up on Jakku. Rey has never asked him how he thrived in the desert, or if he has any family there; Endo is the kind of person who keeps to himself, restricting details in every self-sentiment. _The less they know_ , he had once told her without specifying ‘they’, _the less they have to use against you._ He’s only a few years younger than Anita and a discussion with him is an awakening, as if he doesn’t know everything but he can damn well convince you he does.

“Excuse me,” Ben says, and then rises from the chair. “I have some paperwork to sign before recall.”

He lumbers off in the direction of his study, not that any of them want to stop him.

“Way to go,” Thado Ren mutters to Deecko and Saro. The latter raises his hands in defeat. Thado is a menacing beast of an Anzati who cloaks himself to shrink his sinister size; he bares no guilt when he consumes his victims, but despair often exhausts his voice if he crushes a flower. He is the only man Rey has ever known who can reverse the damnation of a wilting plant but exude no qualms with killing on command. Life, as he believes it, is a gift only the enduring deserve and so they should receive it without hinderance. Rey figures that has everything to do with his cultural upbringing.

Rey doesn’t look at any of them as she throws back the rest of her drink and then traces Ben’s steps into the office to change the topic of his concerns. Politics or something, that often did the trick.

“They’re just rumors,” Anita says sternly when Rey’s hand hesitates against the door of Ben’s office, and she pauses. “We’re far beyond the concerns of arduous guidelines from people who don’t understand the nature of our desires. The Council cares little for your relationship with Master Ren; it’s the influence of the Dark that truly concerns them.”

Rey wonders, if Master Skywalker had not spent her youth reinforcing the stepping stones of the Dark path, would she be naïve to the point of tasting a drop of pure power? She knows that desire is a gateway, a premediated sin. Desire is what festers in the spirits of the Knights of Ren, and it replicates the cold departure of light so it can leave them aching and unfulfilled. They will want more. They will always want more. It is a power of deep symmetry, the need to reflect all the light rejects, to retain both the balance and its unyielding power. Creation requires destruction. Knowledge requires desire.

Rey understands that the Knights of Ren are to be feared and admired for mastering the harmonious insanity of true Darkness, but the only desire she would ever feel in their presence is the want to survive.

  

  

  

When Rey steps into the office, it occurs to her that Ben is unsettled. He stands out on the crescent patio, the view of the city displayed before him like a wasteland of stars, his fingers desperately grasping the basalt railing. The green and blue ferns Rey had planted last season are blooming, and they are eagerly rustled as the wind rushes into the room. 

She seeks out Ben’s aura and feels the anger that dwells within, the constant confliction only the Knights of Ren have learned to master with will. When the darkness used to consume him, his emotions were a hairline trigger. When he had promised he would never again surrender to despair, his emotions resolved with indifference.

“Ben,” she utters to him. “Talk to me. What happened?” 

He raises his hand, signaling her silence. She watches him cautiously. Eventually, she follows his gaze out the window to see the First Order flagship descending through the clouds.

 _“That,”_ Ben says with a snarl.

 

 


End file.
